Saturday, 28 April 2012

This
afternoon I worked in a carbon black plant. Do you know what a carbon
black plant is? It's where they burn natural gas with insufficient
oxygen and make carbon which is powdery black stuff in big bags worth 3
cents a pound, used in making tires, paints, & numerous other
places.

The
[Texas] panhandle is the seat of the carbon black
industry, and on any given day in any given spot you can look all around
you and in 6 or 7 corners 40 miles away, no fooling, you see little
black places above the horizon. These are the C.B. plants. Then as you
get nearer, naturally, the little black place gets bigger and bigger.
From 5 or 10 miles it's a huge black cloud out there ahead of you. Then
you drive right up to it and it's just exactly like driving from a
sunny day into the middle of night.

They make wonderful backgrounds for pictures for quite some
distance, and look exactly like dust storms I've seen pictures of, and
I'll bet that's just what they were mistaken for by some dumb FSA
photographers I could mention.

The one I worked in today had 300 what they call hot houses.
Each hot house has several hundred gas jets burning. I went in one
that was off, then they turned it on for me and I got a picture before
it got very hot and got out. It's a beautiful weird sight inside. High
mass.

Anyway, in working there, I got dirtier, that is
blacker, than I have ever been in my life. Really black all over. Right
through the clothes it goes. I washed carefully my face and
hands, but I'm leaving the rest for a while, it's really kind of
beautiful. It gets very shiny when you rub it.

About the best pictures I got this year, I think, will prove
to be the portraits of some of the black faced workers there. I got so
excited about these guys that I shot up all the film I had with me, and
didn't get pix of the buildings, and various operations. So I'll have
to go back again. And I'll sure make some more of those portraits.

John Vachon (1914-1975), letter to his wife Penny, 11 November 1942, from John Vachon’s America: Photographs and Letters from the Depression to World War II: John Vachon, ed. Miles Orvell, 2003

Carbon black plant, Sunray, Texas: gas is burned in 350 of these long low buildings called "doghouses"

Carbon black plant, Sunray, Texas: gas is burned in 350 of these long
low buildings called "doghouses"

Carbon black plant, Sunray, Texas

Drying at carbon black plant, Sunray, Texas

Bags of carbon black at plant, Sunray, Texas

Bags of carbon black at plant, Sunray, Texas

Well on the pump, vicinity of Sunray, Texas: photo by John Vachon, November 1942

(Carbon
black is a form of amorphous carbon produced by the incomplete
combustion of heavy petroleum products such as FCC tar, coal tar,
ethylene cracking tar & c. It is employed as a pigment and
reinforcement in rubber and plastic products, most commonly as a pigment
and
reinforcing phase in automobile tires. In tire production it is used to
conduct
heat away from the tread and belt area of the tire, thus reducing
thermal
damage and increasing tire life. The International Agency for Research
on Cancer has determined carbon black to be possibly carcinogenic to
humans. Short-term exposure causes mechanical irritation to the human
upper respiratory tract, producing local discomfort.)

17 comments:

Knowing the initial color image so well (and always being overcome by it), seeing the other images in series (and reading Vachon's terrific letter) comes as a surprise and a revelation about Vachon's work, the subject he is photographing (and its broader implications, obviously), and BTP's nature and its potential as a form of art history, art criticism and art-making. The latter subject is one I used to spend a lot of time thinking about when I was in graduate school until I was overcome by my own confusion and underwhelmed by some of the efforts in this area made in the name of Conceptual Art. But this is really something else. What you've presented augments and deepens the experience of the "headline" image without diminishing its impact or subjecting the viewer to something tedious and prompting either the response "I know that already; I saw the first picture," or "I really have no interest in knowing what you're telling me." I mean, "John Vachon: Like driving from a sunny day into the middle of the night (Sunray, Texas, November 1942)" really works. Curtis

These US Chemical Safety Board reports from a notable incident five years ago suggest the carbon hot zone of Sunray has grown like Topsy since John Vachon's day -- if that is Topsy were a sci-fi organism programmed to grow invertedly downward toward the infernal regions.

I love John Vachon's work. Had he been less self-deprecating and private by nature, perhaps he'd be known now as the great American artist he was. But that letter to his wife -- a remarkable innocence, seen in retrospect.

The things we make. The sheer volume of it all. Amazing. Parts of the puzzle, the greater puzzle being us. How nice that we take care to warn ourselves about the hazards and symptoms, the target organs, the “mechanical irritation to the human upper respiratory tract.” (I hear that one). Yet we scarcely question our need to grind up the planet. Vaschon’s photos are a true study in contrast. I especially like the Nosferatu-like faces and the composition in 11450, the “doghouses”. You continue to edify, Tom. Many thanks. Oh, seeing as this stuff is used in tires, be extra careful around cars and streets today. May the Ford be with you.

This is like a little piece of hell, for sure. It seems that in search for our own comforts, we have committed so many crimes against our fellow beings--human and otherwise. I've never seen these photos. I wondering what it's like today.